'There you have him! A comical old chap, and very good-natured,' remarked Bazarov, directly Vassily Ivanitch had gone. 'Just such a queer fish as yours, only in another way. He chatters too much.'
'And your mother seems an awfully nice woman,' observed Arkady.
'Yes, there's no humbug about her. You'll see what a dinner she'll give us.'
'They didn't expect you to-day, sir; they've not brought any beef?' observed Timofeitch, who was just dragging in Bazarov's box.
'We shall get on very well without beef. It's no use crying for the moon. Poverty, they say, is no vice.'
'How many serfs has your father?' Arkady asked suddenly.
'The estate's not his, but mother's; there are fifteen serfs, if I remember.'
'Twenty-two in all,' Timofeitch added, with an air of displeasure.
The flapping of slippers was heard, and Vassily Ivanovitch reappeared. 'In a few minutes your room will be ready to receive you,' he cried triumphantly. Arkady ... Nikolaitch? I think that is right? And here is your attendant,' he added, indicating a short-cropped boy, who had come in with him in a blue full-skirted coat with ragged elbows and a pair of boots which did not belong to him. 'His name is Fedka. Again, I repeat, even though my son tells me not to, you mustn't expect great things. He knows how to fill a pipe, though. You smoke, of course?'
'I generally smoke cigars,' answered Arkady.